Do You Really Want to be Free?

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW COHEN BY WILLFRIED NELLES

Willfried: Andrew do you have a message and so, what is it?

Andrew: I want people to wake up.

W: To wake up to what?

A: To the truth. I want people to wake up so that they are able to perceive what is true. So that they are able to respond to life and can begin to recog­nise what their true nature is and are able to express that in the way they live their lives. I feel that most people including many people who are in­volved in spiritual practices tend to be extremely obsessed with themselves and I feel that spiritual awakening only has meaning when people begin to wake up from the dream of self ­absorption and self-obsession.

W. Isn’t the desire to awaken also a kind of self obsession?

A. No, because when one really wants to awaken, one begins to become obs­essed with something that has noth­ing to do with the history of the per­sonality, because there is something. I call it “an evolutionary impulse” There is an evolutionary impulse.

W. So this impulse doesn’t come from the person?

A. It doesn’t come from the personality the way I see it the race as a whole is trying to evolve. When people begin to experience spiritual longing, what they are experiencing is the evolutionary impulse that is working within the whole race. Not everybody experiences spiritual longing but when an individ­ual does experience spiritual longing they become aware of it and start to feel the evolutionary impulse of the whole race becoming active. It’s not really a personal thing.      

People think it’s a personal thing - I feel this, it’s something very special for me” - but it’s an impersonal force. It’s an impersonal feeling, it’s an im­personal desire, and it has nothing to do with the other kind of longing and desire that people have.

W: I can understand that from my own experience but then what happens is that we hear a word like “Enlightenment” and it becomes a personal thing again. Something that I never dreamed of comes and goes. I could just drop to my knees before that. But then I hear about “awaken­ing” and about “Enlightenment” and then there is something to attain or to discover.

A: What there is to attain and discover is that which you are speaking about - that which you fall on your knees before - that’s what is: is to be discov­ered and to be attained.

W: But what I want to ask is it becom­ing personal thing again? “I want to be enlightened for me” or “I want to be free” or however you say it.

A: But don’t you see there’s no way of avoiding the fact that you are an individual human being and begin to realize that there is another possibil­ity, a possibility, to experience and perceive in a different way, what is that individual going to do ? Are they going to go to sleep and just turn on the TV again? Are they going to begin to do whatever they can to realize that which they know is possible?” Are they going to approach it or not? Because many people say. “Well, no, if I approach it. It’s an individual thing. “The point is, there is no way of avoid­ing the fact that you are an individual human being, and realizing once, experiencing God once, doesn’t mean that all of this conditioning just completely falls away.

W: Okay, how can, one give attention to that? In other words, what is the message you give? 

A: I’m constantly trying to encourage people to realize that there is nothing unique or special about any aspect of our experience. I always say, “There is only one person. There is only one mind. There is only one body. There is only one heart. There is only one perceiver. There is only one experiencer. There is only one person who feels, and that person is you.”

So if you begin to just step and begin to look a little bit more deeply at the actuality of your own experience, you begin to realize that it’s all completely impersonal. There is nothing unique about anything that any particular individual could ever feel, could ever experience, could ever think. I find ‘that’ people make the same mistake with spiritual experi­ences that they make with their neuro­sis - they make a big deal out of it. They make it into some big special, romantic thing, a big personal drama, and they begin to feel very special and then the illusion of individuality be­comes heightened by that. People have to feel alive and this is part of the whole mess.

W: I heard that you speak against so ­called spiritual therapy. Why?

A: I believe that in groups and in therapies these experiences of vulnerability, intimacy and trust can occur, and I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m saying that’s good. The only thing, I’m saying is that in therapy groups or in therapy in general, what tends to be emphasized is the significance of per­sonal feeling, personal experience I am trying to encourage something com­pletely different. I am trying to deemphasize the significance of personal feeling and personal experience, and emphasize the fact that every aspect of our experience is completely impersonal. In the therapy situation, there can be an enormous relief, people will be able to experience inner and outer freedom, but quite often what is going to be left with the person is still this self-obsession. Ultimately you have to get to the point where there is a maturity of interest, where the whole sig­nificance of the personal drama itself becomes very secondary.

W: Okay, but then what about medi­tation? because for me, meditation is just something that helps you to expe­rience the dis-identification and to look at things as they are, and not make some personal thing out of it.

A: Everything you said is good, and I agree with it. As long as the meditation experience is supported by a very pro­found desire to truly be free, then the meditation practice will have powerful effects. But the point is, generally people do it to try to experience some kind of detachment from the mind and from the feelings, and that’s it. The meditation practice is not based on some kind of much deeper commit­ment to be willing to let go of every­thing, to be willing to let go of this whole world - then when you sit, the meditation’s going to be very easy. When most people meditate it’s just another form of therapy. It’s just some way to get a little bit of relief. I don’t really separate the meditation practice from the way we’re living our.1ife as a whole. Because the point is, if we’re living a spiritual life what does it really mean? Does it mean that we meditate? That we go to therapy groups? That we read spiritual books? That we have interesting talks? Or does it mean that we’re really doing something that expresses a liberated and very passionate relationship to life itself?

So the extraordinary renuncia­tion and willingness necessary to give up that which is unreal has to be expressed in all of our life, including our meditation. Most people teaching meditation or leading therapy groups are themselves still very lost in the whole dream of their own personal lives, and so they’re usually not in a position to encourage other people to go beyond it.

W: Hearing you say that; many or most people might say. “Oh yes, that’s an interesting view. That is very inter­esting. This man is quite nice and is very, very interesting” and then they go home and nothing happens.

A: Well no, sometimes they go home and a lot happens.

W: What is your way of bringing people to that point where they’re not just listening to an interesting man and an interesting teaching?”

A: The foundation of my teaching, the foundation of any genuine spiritual teaching, is what I call “clarity of in­tention.” So, I’m constantly encourag­ing people to ask themselves. What is the most important thing? what is the most important thing? What is the most important thing? Do I want to be free? Do I want to be free?” Most people say “Well, of course I want to be free.” I say, “No, think about it much more. What does freedom mean? “The person says, “Well, I don’t know.” I would say, “Well, find out What does freedom mean? What does freedom really mean?” (The person says.) “Freedom is a metaphor for no bounda­ries - no limts.” So I say, “What does that mean for you as a personality?” “Oh”

I feel many people don’t have any idea what freedom really means. It’s not just a feeling, it’s not just about feeling good! It’s something much bigger than that. If they really ask themselves, most people usually find that they’re clinging to some kind of illusion of security that they’ve created for themselves, even people who medi­tate, do therapy groups and are living a spiritual lifestyle. If you look, they usually are not all that different from their parents. The outside looks differ­ent quite often, maybe the bed is on the floor, but if you look at their rela­tionship to life itself, it usually ex­presses the same kind of fear and in­security that worldly people express.

A lot of teachers say, “If you want to be free, you have to be willing to abandon the future.” That means you give up the materialistic relation­ship to life, to feeling, to experience and to security. Then this incredible space opens and you begin navigating on a completely different plane of con­sciousness.

W: Is it a question of will, of willing?

A: No, it’s not. The will does come into it at certain points, but it’s not a question of will. It has to do with the fact of no limitation - the fact of infin­ity, you see, merging. The individual has to come to the point where they’re no longer struggling against the fact that they do not exist as isolated or separate at all.

W: I would like to make this more concrete. I would say, “I want to be free it.”

A: So. I say, “Are you willing to give up the future?”

W: yeah.

A: Really?

W: Yeah.

A: Because you’re saying it very casu­ally “yeah”

W: (Laughs)

A: You’re only saying it metaphori­cally. I don’t believe you really mean it! (laughs). Because you have to mean it. If you really mean it then I think you’ll know in less than one second exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll say, “Oh my God!”

W: I will try to understand your point. When I ask myself. ‘Do you really want to be free? “I realize something like. I don’t know everything and I feel very helpless and it’s very, very unlim­ited, and I think I want to face that.

A: You think, you’re not sure though You have to be sure about it. Because you said. “I feel there’s helplessness. “So I’m saying, would you be willing to surrender and accept utter and perfect helplessness forever? Could you abandon yourself to that utter and absolute helplessness?

W: (laughs)

A: Do you see what I mean?

W: Yeah.

A: Because if you can do that, then that will be it. You’ll be flying away. Because that is the total or radical in­ security that Enlightenment is. It’s only in being willing to let go that much that you really begin to see very, deeply. Most people don’t have the courage to do that; they just want to continue struggling with their fear.

Enlightenment, helplessness and surrender have to be at the very center of your existence and everything else has to come second.

(Reprinted with permission from Mok­sha Foundation. P.O. Box 5265. Lark­spur A 94977 U.S.A.)